


Walking in a Winter Wonderland

by TurtleTotem



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Charles in a Wheelchair, Christmas, Exes, M/M, past Erik/Suzanna, past Raven/Azazel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 06:46:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12953634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: Charles hasn't seen Erik since their devastating breakup ten years ago. He's certainly the last person he expects to run into at a Christmas lights display.





	Walking in a Winter Wonderland

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ikeracity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikeracity/gifts).



"Wait, you two broke up?"

"Weeks ago. Didn't I tell you? Kurt, come back this way!" Charles had to raise his voice over the hubbub of other families and the piped-in strains of "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year," but four-year-old Kurt heard and obediently scampered back to them.

Raven took her son's hand before he could wander off again, and sighed at Charles. "I guess that's one less to feed at Christmas dinner, anyway."

"Yes, they do seem more likely to jump ship shortly before the holidays, don't they? It makes sense. If you know something's circling the drain, don't put either party through the awkwardness of Christmas with strangers."

"You don't sound too broke up about it."

Charles shrugged, looking not at Raven but around them at the trees and garlands and lavish festoons of lights. He hadn't been surprised when Richard, awkward and apologetic, told him it wasn't working out. They'd been dating almost six months, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd had a relationship last more than eight. Probably not since—

Not since Erik.

"Well, you know I'm here if you want to cry or rant or whatever," Raven said. "Heaven knows you've done enough of that for me, this last year."

"You and Az were married almost a decade, that gets a lot more shoulder-crying credit than five and a half months of Richard," Charles snorted. "Thanks, though. I'll keep it in mind." A passerby barked his leg against Charles's wheelchair, and limped off, swearing. Charles and Raven exchanged a silent eyeroll—the chair had been there all the while, and hadn't gotten any bigger, how did so many people trip over it?—but at least this fellow hadn't acted like it was Charles's fault.

The music switched to "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Seven-year-old Marie, walking on Raven's other side, cried out, "This is my favorite!" and began to sing along. It was at least her third "favorite" so far. Marie and Kurt were just really too adorable.

They turned a corner and found themselves headed down an enclosed tunnel of lights, their colors gently shifting in a wave pattern. Marie gasped, staring up at the lights like she'd caught a glimpse of heaven. It had been quite a drive, coming out to the 'Winter Wonderland,' and it was deucedly cold—but absolutely worth it for how much the children were enjoying themselves. Charles thought of how close he'd come to taking that job in England, instead of coming back to the States. Nothing in England could have compared with being here for his sister when she needed him, and being part of his niece and nephew's childhoods.

Further down the tunnel, a man was lifting his little girl—about Marie's age—onto his shoulders so she could skim her fingers along the top of the tunnel.

"Pick me up, Mommy, pick me up like that!" Kurt begged, tugging Raven's hand. The man with the little girl looked toward the sound—and Charles's hands clenched on the wheels of his chair, bringing it to a sudden stop.

Erik.

_It can't be,_ he told himself. It was just his eyes playing tricks on him because he did tend to think of Erik around Christmas—but the man's mouth had dropped open. The little girl bounced impatiently on his shoulders, wanting down, but the man didn't move, just stared at Charles.

It was definitely Erik. His hair was different—a bit shaggier, tousled, when he had always styled it rather severely before—and he had a bit of facial scruff that he never would have permitted back in their college days. His eyes, though, were the same distinctive grey-green-blue, like frozen lake water under a winter sky.

Overhead, the music changed to the aching melancholy tones of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

"Charles?" the man said, looking stunned, and that ended all doubt. Charles had forgotten exactly what his name sounded like coming from Erik's mouth, but he remembered now. He remembered _everything,_ in a wave that left his hair standing on end—kisses under a shared umbrella, drunken pun contests, chess and arguments, tackling each other into bed on a lazy Sunday morning—

Raven had paused beside him, frowning. "Is that…?"

"Daddy, let me _down!"_ said the little girl on Erik's shoulders; he shook himself and complied. The child ran to a blonde woman standing nearby and tugged her sleeve. "Mommy, Mommy, did you see? Did you see me touching the ceiling?"

Daddy and Mommy. Charles tried to control his expression, and not let on that he felt like he'd been stabbed.

Erik walked closer, dodging another passing family without ever appearing to notice them. Charles was being rather a traffic blockage, he supposed, but he couldn't have moved for the world.

He could see the moment Erik's mind processed the chair, his expression shifting. Unable to bear whatever ill-considered thing would fall out of his mouth, Charles talked over it.

"Erik, it's lovely to see you," he said, as chipper and casual as he could manage, as if Erik were some friend-of-a-friend or perhaps an ex-coworker, rather than an ex… everything else, everything. "How are you?"

"I'm…" Erik seemed to consider several responses before settling on, "I'm very well, thank you. Um. Are you living here again? The States, I mean."

"Yes, I've been teaching at Columbia the last few years."

"Back at Columbia," Erik repeated. "So close."

Yes—and Charles had told himself he was silly for wondering if he'd run into Erik on their old stomping grounds. He'd spent a dizzying first year at Columbia confronted at every turn by memories of their student years there, the same halls and classrooms and courtyards and sidewalks. He knew there was little chance Erik had stayed in the area… but here he was.

With his wife and child.

Raven, eyes wide, had ushered the children past Erik, though Marie glared suspiciously over her shoulder as she went. Charles tried to give her a reassuring nod. He did not feel reassuring right now.

"Who's this, Erik?" said the blonde woman, catching up to them with the little girl in her arms. She smiled at Charles, perfectly polite, but Charles sensed she was poised to intervene in whatever was making Erik look like that.

"Suzanna," Erik said, "this is Charles Xavier. Charles, this is Suzanna Dane, my ex."

_Ex_. Charles felt his heart lift, pulse ticking up, and he hated himself for it.

Suzanna's eyes had gone round, her entire posture changing subtly. "Oh, you're _Charles._ That is. Um. Erik's mentioned you." She held out a gloved hand. "Wonderful to meet you."

_Erik's mentioned you?_ Numbly, Charles returned the handshake.

"And this is our daughter, Lorna," Suzanna continued. "Say hi, Lorna!"

The little girl giggled and ducked her head against her mother's puffy coat, letting out a muffled, "Hi."

"Hi, Lorna," Charles said gravely. "You look a great deal like your daddy, don't you?" Now that he was closer, he could see it in her chin and cheekbones, the shape of her smile. Erik's daughter. Erik had always so desperately wanted a family.

"Hi, I'm Kurt!" Charles's nephew announced, bouncing into the middle of the conversation.

"Yes, this is my nephew, Kurt," Charles said, ruffling the little boy's hair. "And I'm sure you remember Raven, Erik," he added as his sister tried to discreetly tug Kurt away.

"Of course," Erik said, extending a hand, which Raven warily took. The two of them had always had a strange, prickly friendship, based on shared ethical alignments but little true compatibility of spirit.

More introductions all around, Marie and Suzanna and Raven—and Suzanna, peering more closely at Raven's face, opened her mouth in shocked recognition.

"Raven Darkholme! Weren't you the Ghost of Christmas Past?"

"Oh, did you see the play?" Raven's cheeks went bright pink, her eyes sparkling—Charles didn't think she'd ever been recognized in public before. Of course her acting career was still fledgling, to say the least; this production of _A Christmas Carol_ was actually the first time she'd gotten paid for it.

"Oh my gosh, I loved it! You were fantastic! Theater is actually something I'd love to do myself, how did you get involved in it?"

Before Charles knew it, both families were moving down the tunnel together, Raven and Suzanna chattering excitedly, the kids chasing each other in circles, Charles and Erik bringing up the rear. Erik kept pace with Charles's wheelchair, not speaking, as they exited the tunnel and continued down the winding path.

"So, Erik," Charles said, flailing for a topic of conversation, "what are you doing at a Christmas light show?"

" _Winter holiday_ light show," Erik said with prim humor, pointing over Charles's shoulder; he glanced over to see a display of dancing dreidels.

"I stand corrected."

"As you so often do." Erik hesitated, and made a voiceless sort of stammer; Charles knew why. Erik had just remembered that Charles didn't _stand_ at all these days and wasn't sure whether to apologize for his phrasing. "Anyway you know I don't mind Christmas that much," he said instead.

"Ah, I remember—your favorite foster parents were big Christmas-niks."

"Yes. Still are, I'm happy to say."

"What, you found them again?"

"When Lorna was born, I tracked them down." Erik shrugged inside his big coat, so casual that Charles could instantly tell how important it was to him. "Suzanna's parents are gone, too, and I wanted Lorna to have grandparents. Steve and Peggy said they'd be thrilled to take the job. We usually spend Christmas Day at their place."

"Oh, Erik, that's wonderful! I'm so glad."

Erik looked at him then, the hint of a smile on the edges of his lips. "You always were like that."

"What? Glad?"

"No. Yes. Glad for other people, I mean, and saying it like a ninety-year-old granny, and from anyone else it would be stilted or even sarcastic, but not you. You're always genuine."

"I… thank you?"

"It was a compliment," Erik assured him.

_I used to tease you about that,_ Charles thought. _How the only difference between your insults and compliments was, not even whether you were smiling when you said it, but how many teeth were in the smile._

How was this happening? How were they just moseying down a park path, after ten years, when the last time he'd seen Erik was through a blur of tears as he threw a bookend at Erik's head and screamed for him to get out of his apartment?

But with Christmas lights haloing Erik's hair and "Deck the Halls" filling the air, it was the _first_ time he'd seen Erik, not the last, that came most strongly to mind. Emma Frost's Christmas party, twelve years ago.

Charles had been tipsy and full of affection for the world after winning the ugly Christmas sweater contest—the sweater had pompoms and tinsel and little blinking lightbulbs. Erik had been ranting to the room about compulsory Christianity and the uselessness of candy canes, until Charles started festooning him with strings of lights, and Erik's shouts trailed off into quizzical laughter.

"What…? What are you doing?"

"Decorating you," Charles said, "you're so tall and handsome, like a tree," and launched into a garbled version of "O Tannenbaum."

Erik corrected his unrecognizable German, got himself free of the lights, and offered to get Charles a drink—then brought him cookies, instead, because he'd clearly had enough to drink. Together they danced to a Weird Al Hannukkah song, and stuck gift bows in each other's hair, and rescued someone's cat that was stuck in the Christmas tree (no one knew whose, Emma didn't have a cat).

Near the end of the evening, someone had pointed out they were under the mistletoe together, and Charles found himself being kissed within an inch of his life before he could even get his hopes up. It was too cheesy for even Charles Xavier to say out loud, but he knew his life had just changed.

Up ahead, the children all gasped and broke into excited chatter; Charles looked up to see a little train pulling into a gingerbread station.

"Oh, we have to ride the train, my friend told me," Suzanna said. "It does a whole little tour of the park. It's only a dollar a head."

"Please, Mommy, please!" Marie said, starry-eyed; Kurt was already trying to climb onto the tracks.

"Well…" Raven looked over her shoulder at Charles, her expression a question. The train was not, of course, wheelchair-accessible.

"Of course, you must go!" Charles said. "I'll meet you where it lets off—or does it circle back here?"

"I think it'll drop us off near the entrance," Suzanna said.

"That's right, ma'am," the ticket-taker said, accepting Suzanna's dollar bills.

Erik hung back as the others piled onto the train. "I'll meet you at the end, too."

Lorna stuck her lip out. "No, Daddy, you come on the train!"

"I'm going to stay with Charles, sweetie. His wheelchair won't fit on the train, and it would be mean and rude to leave him all alone."

Erik was staying with him instead of accompanying his family? "Oh, don't be silly, I'll be fine," Charles said weakly.

Erik pinned him with a look. "It would be mean and rude to leave you alone, and that's not the behavior I model for my daughter."

"Well… all right, then…"

He and Erik waved as the train pulled away, then turned to continue down the path. Neither of them spoke for several steps.

"So you've had an eventful decade," Charles said at last. "A child, a divorce…"

"Oh, Suzanna and I were never married. We had a fun weekend, and then a big surprise in the form of Lorna. It was clear early on that things would work out better with us as friends."

"A fun weekend," Charles repeated. "I don't remember you being much for casual encounters." Erik hadn't been casual about _anything_ , and their relationship least of all.

"Well," Erik said awkwardly, "being serious hadn't worked out for me well in the past."

Silence. The path turned up a hillside; Erik pointed out the ramp next to the staircase even before Charles looked for it.

"You haven't asked about the wheelchair," Charles said as they wound their way up the ramp.

"I figured if you wanted to talk about it, you would." Erik gave him an arch look. "Nothing ever could stop you from talking once you decided to."

"Pot to kettle," Charles muttered, then took a deep breath. "Bicycle accident, in England, four years ago. Or should I say car accident? I was on a bicycle, they were in a car. I can manage a step or two without falling down, enough to make getting from chair to chair a lot easier for me than for some. It could be worse. It won't be getting better."

He watched carefully for Erik's reaction. Some people had a hard time getting past the first rush of pity and horror. Charles tried not to hold it against them, God knew he'd spent months overflowing with horror and pity at himself. He'd needed a lot of time and space to deal with his pain; in some ways it was unfair that those he met had to deal with it in the moment, right in front of him.

But Erik was used to dealing with pain. He didn't embarrass either of them with a gush of tears, didn't withdraw in awkwardness or fear, as if paralysis were catching. He only let out a harsh breath, like he'd been punched in the gut, and rumpled his hair. "That sucks."

Charles gave a surprised laugh. "It does."

"Are you doing okay? I mean, considering?"

"Yes, I am," Charles said firmly. "It doesn't slow me down much, these days."

"Good."

There was a long pause, not uncomfortable this time, both of them admiring the nearest decorations—a little grove of winter-bare trees, every twig outlined in white lights that twinkled here and there.

"I wish I could have been there to help you," Erik said quietly.

"Well," Charles said, "we both know that wasn't _your_ fault. I was the one who left the country."

Erik's face seemed to tighten, lines deepening, and his breath came out in an unsteady plume of frost. Charles, feeling a little unsteady himself, wondered if Erik was remembering that last screaming fight. The one where he called Charles cold and selfish and accused him of never having loved him.

At length Erik spoke again, reindeer blinking into poses of motion behind him. "I shouldn't have asked you to stay."

That was possibly the last thing Charles had ever expected to hear. Awkwardly, he tried to keep his response lighthearted. "Asked? I don't remember a lot of asking. Demanding, certainly."

"I remember it as begging."

So much for lighthearted.

"I can see that it… probably didn't come across that way," Erik added.

It did, though, looking back. Every snarl and shout a disguised plea from a boy only two years out of foster care, who only knew that the one person who supposedly loved him was choosing to leave him. All Charles had heard at the time was that he was expected to give up his lifelong Oxford dreams to please his boyfriend.

"I didn't understand then, how much it hurt you," Charles said. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for that." He'd spent that entire first year at Oxford miserable anyway, angry and lonely and betrayed, missing Erik like a lost limb—and he knew whereof he spoke, on that subject. "Sometimes I think I shouldn't have gone," he added, a mad thing he didn't mean to say, but not because he didn't mean it.

"Of course you should have gone!" Erik looked him in the eye for almost the first time all night. "Charles, you got into _Oxford._ Even if you hadn't wanted that your whole life, you'd be an idiot to give it up—especially for me!"

"Especially for you?" Charles repeated. "Erik, if there was ever anyone worth giving things up for, it's you! I was selfish, like you said, I wanted to have it both ways—what I really wanted was for you to come with me, but of course I couldn't ask you to give up your whole life—"

"What?" Erik stopped walking and stared at him. "You wanted me to come with you?"

"Of course I did." Charles was staring back. "Erik, you were—I was—we were in love! I thought we were going to be together forever! The last thing I wanted…" His throat closed up, for a mortifying moment, and he had to pause and lower his voice. "Breaking up was the last thing I wanted. I regret literally everything about it."

It him a moment later that this implied he regretted breaking up at all, ever. Which was not actually an incorrect implication.

"I do, too," Erik said, low and hoarse.

They were near the entrance now, and could see the train pulling away from its little station there. Charles caught sight of Raven, Suzanna and the kids milling about next to the enormous Christmas tree at the entrance. Charles waved until Raven saw them and waved back; Kurt let go of her hand to dash pell-mell across the open space between them and launch himself into Charles's lap.

"Uncle Charles we rode the _train_ and it went _clacky clacky clacky_ like this, like bumpity-bumpity-bump, and it went up the hill and we all had to lean backward and Marie fell over, and we saw all the lights _forever_ —"

"I'm glad you had fun, darling," Charles chuckled, trying to flatten Kurt's staticky hair. He glanced sideways at Erik, wishing desperately that they hadn't been interrupted—even as he wondered what in the world he would have said next. He caught Erik returning the glance, winter-lake eyes intent.

Raven, approaching with the others, muffled a sudden snort of laughter into her glove. Charles raised an eyebrow at her, and she looked pointedly at something over his head.

"Ah," Erik said, he and Charles both looking up. "We seem to be under the mistletoe."

"So we are."

Charles reached up even as Erik leaned down, heart pounding, a helpless smile breaking across his face. Erik paused, shy and hopeful and gorgeous, and Charles pulled him across the last inch between them to press their lips together.

Somewhere the music changed to the first notes of "O Tannenbaum," and Charles knew in his secret cheesy heart that his life had just changed again.


End file.
